“Relax, Gabe.” She patted his cheek. “We’re safe. I’m on birth control.”
“You haven’t been able to take any—”
“Since I’m too forgetful to take a pill every day,” she interrupted, “I switched to the shot, which is good for three months, and my next isn’t due until July. So relax before you hyperventilate.”
“Okay.” He ran a hand over his eyes, heaved out a breath. “Okay. You should know I was clean last time I got tested. And I haven’t slept with anyone since before the car accident.”
That long ago? Wow. He was practically a monk. A very sexy, very very
talented
monk. And, yeah, the dirty little fantasy that just popped into her head of dressing him up in a Franciscan robe while she wore a school girl outfit probably just secured her seat in Hell. Mama would be so ashamed.
Gabe was watching her, waiting for a reply to… Um, what were they talking about? It definitely wasn’t Franciscan monks.
Oh, right. Him being disease free. “I had no doubts about that, Mr. Responsible.”
He lifted his head to scowl at her. She rolled her eyes and added, “I’m clean, too. I don’t take those kinds of chances. I don’t sleep around.”
“Good.”
Was that possessiveness she heard in his voice? Oh, a girl could only hope. She snuggled into his side and savored the feel of his heavy arm around her. His lips brushed her temple.
“Get some sleep, honey. We’re going to need it.”
She tried. She truly did, but as soon as she shut her eyes, she saw her brother’s face.
Was he still alive? If he was alive, was he in one piece? Had his captors beaten him or starved him…or worse? And even if they get him back, would he still be lost to her? She wasn’t a dummy. She knew what a traumatic experience like this could do to a man.
Did Mena really know anything about Bryson? She didn’t see how, and Gabe didn’t think so, but she felt like they were out of options. No telling when the FBI would try to exchange money for Brys, and although Gabe never said so, she knew he thought paying the ransom was an all-around bad idea. The captors would have no reason to keep Bryson alive after that. And sixty-five million reasons to kill him so he couldn’t identify them.
“Audrey,” Gabe whispered in her ear then moved over her. His mouth found hers in a sweet, gentle kiss that was more about comfort than sex. “I can hear your mind churning from over here. Shut down, honey.”
“I can’t,” she confessed. “I’m scared.”
“I told you I’d let nothing happen to you.”
Cocky man. But she believed him. He was more than capable of keeping her safe. “I’m not scared for us.” He raised a brow, his expression patient but dubious, and she sighed. “Well, okay, I am. But I’m more worried about Bryson. What if—”
“No, no. Never play the ‘what if’ game. You’ll drive yourself nuts.”
She bit her lip. “But what if we don’t get to him in time? They’ll kill him, won’t they?”
Gabe rolled over onto his back again and stared up at the ceiling. “If we can’t get to him in time, my team will find him,” he said after a moment and squeezed her against his side. “Don’t worry. Quinn knows what he’s doing.”
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn had no fucking clue what he was doing.
Since leaving the guerilla camp, Jesse and Ian had been at each other’s throats constantly, still bickering over Ian’s treatment of Cocodrilo, who was now a “guest” in one of the bedrooms at base camp. And since Quinn had all but sanctioned Ian’s actions, Jesse shared the love with him. Jean-Luc sided with Jesse, and Marcus sided with Ian once he found out what was going on. Harvard tried to mediate, but the poor guy got crushed between both sides.
This mission was turning into a snafu for the record books.
Quinn sat at the table while the guys raged around him. He studied maps of the city and outlying areas that highlighted known EPC strongholds, but what he really wanted to do was bang his head against the table until he passed out. Because that would probably be more productive since, according to Cocodrilo, the EPC knew exactly squat about Bryson Van Amee’s abduction. They had nothing to do with any of it, and if Jacinto Rivera was involved, it was without his brother’s or the EPC’s blessing.
So who the hell took Bryson Van Amee? And who attacked Cocodrilo’s camp and presumably took Gabe and Audrey? He imagined it was the same person or organization that got into that shootout with the EPC on the jungle highway, but the license plate numbers Jean-Luc had taken down after finding Gabe’s Jeep shot to hell had come back stolen.
Back to square one.
Quinn pushed aside the maps and sat back in thought. They still needed to find Jacinto Rivera, their only solid lead to Bryson. And that warehouse still needed to go
boom
at some point, or else he wouldn’t be able to sleep soundly at night knowing he left a bomb-making factory in the hands of the baddies.
Mostly, the team needed to pull the fuck together or nothing would get done.
How would Gabe do it? Quinn had no clue. Gabe just had a natural aura of authority that made people follow him without question. Quinn didn’t have that, but he did know one surefire way to whip the guys into line. He may not be a great leader, but he was one helluva drill instructor.
Quinn stood up fast, letting his chair clatter to the floor. “Ten-hut!”
It would have been amusing to watch the former soldiers in the group snap to automatic attention if he wasn’t so pissed. Once a soldier, always a soldier.
Marcus, the fucking fed, just crossed his arms and scowled. “You military dudes really say that?”
“Yeah. Really. And if you guys have enough energy to bitch at each other like a bunch of nagging housewives, you have enough for some PT training. On the deck. Now!”
To Quinn’s complete surprise, the first to drop was Ian. The rest followed in grumbling succession—Marcus with a roll of the eyes—until only Jesse was standing and Harvard still sat at his computer.
Jesse said, “This is bullshit.”
“On the deck.”
“Screw you.”
“You’re not my type. Drop, Warrick.”
Jesse leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Make. Me.”
In a quick succession of moves, Quinn snapped Jesse’s Stetson off his head, slugged him in the solar plexus, the gut, and the side, bending him double, then elbowed him between the shoulder blades. Jesse went down to his hands and knees, gagging. Another blow to his lower back sent him sprawling on his face.
“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered in awe.
Quinn straightened, tossed the Stetson in front of Jesse, and looked around at the men lying flat on their bellies like an angler’s catch of the day. “
Don’t
fuck with me, guys. Since this isn’t the military, I don’t have to play nice anymore, and I’m done with you assholes jerking me around. From now on, listen to me and do what I say without question or you’ll all get to know the deck as personally as Warrick just did. Got it?”
A round of muttered yeses.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.” It came in succinct unison this time.
“All right. One-hundred push-ups. Now. You stop, you falter, you start over. Go!” Quinn pinned Harvard, who was still at his computer, with a hard look. “You, too.”
Swallowing hard, Harvard dropped out of his chair like a rock.
Satisfied, Quinn righted his own chair and sat down, planted his feet on the table, and snagged Harvard’s laptop. He wasn’t as good at research as their resident genius, but he had sources that needed checking. He began a search for Jacinto Rivera’s current whereabouts while the guys called out each push-up in resounding unison.
One. Two. Three.
Like ticking off seconds on the clock.
Jesus.
…
A knock on the bedroom’s door jolted Gabe out of a dead sleep. He launched from the bed and reached for his firearm, only to realize he was buck ass naked. Evening spilled vibrant colors into the room and tortured his pounding skull as the sun sank over the peaceful slice of ocean outside the windows. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.
The knock sounded again, impatiently this time, and Audrey sat up with a gasp, her hair a wild cloud around her pale face. “What’s that?”
Gabe scrubbed his face with both hands, trying to rub away the fog of sleepy disorientation, and found his jeans on the floor. “It’s okay. Probably a butler with the
proper attire
Mena mentioned.”
Sore and stiff from the beating he took that morning, followed by the fantastic way he’d spent the afternoon, he stuffed his legs into the jeans and crossed the room while buttoning the fly. He glanced back at Audrey to see her wiping her eyes like a drowsy child—but she sure as hell didn’t look childlike with her small breasts bare, pale peach nipples perky in the air-conditioned coolness of the room.
Yeah, he definitely didn’t want whoever was now pounding on the door to see her like that. “Cover up, Audrey.”
“Huh?” She yawned, then looked down at herself. “Oh!” She scrambled for the sheet and clenched it to her lovely breasts. He liked the flush that climbed up her chest into her cheeks. It reminded him of how she looked when turned on, when he was moving deep inside her.
Wouldn’t it be nice to crawl back into bed with her and forget everything again?
He sighed, turned the doorknob, and found Liam Miller with his fist raised in mid-pound.
“Liam,” Gabe said and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, to block his view of the bedroom. “Still got a temper on ya, I see.”
Liam’s upper lip curled. “Gabe Bristow. Imagine my surprise when my men dragged you unconscious from that poppy field. Lost your edge, I see.”
Gabe eyed the garment bags Liam carried. “And you, playing butler for the scum of the earth. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“I go where the money is. As a mercenary now, it’s something you’ll learn fast.” He gave a bitter laugh and shoved the garments toward Gabe. “The infamous Commander Bristow, a mercenary. It still tickles my funny bone to say it. My, how the mighty do fall.”
“My, how the spineless do flee. Tell me something, have you pried that tail from between your legs yet?”
Liam’s teeth gnashed together. “I
had
to flee. I had no choice because of you, you self-righteous prick.”
“Hm. Hey, Liam.” Gabe made a brushing motion near his nose. “You got a little something…”
Liam raised a hand halfway to his nose before he caught himself. Eyes spitting fire, he said, “Back up.”
Unperturbed, Gabe pushed away from the doorframe and stepped back. Liam slammed the door and the lock snapped into place again.
“Whew,” Audrey said on an exhale a few seconds after the door closed. “That’s some bad blood there. I take it you know each other.”
Gabe nodded and laid out a plastic-wrapped dress on the end of the bed for her. He opened his own garment bag to study the contents. A freaking tux and dress shoes. And here he was hoping for cammies and combat boots.
“Let me guess,” Audrey said when he stayed silent. “Long story?”
“Yes and no.” He pulled out the crisp white dress shirt and slid into it, but left it hanging open, unbuttoned. “If you want to know the bare bones, I got the bastard kicked out of the British Special Forces during an op a couple years back, and he’s had it out for me ever since. It’s a mutual hate-hate relationship. Now get dressed, hon.”
She pushed aside the garment bag, ignoring the plum-colored gown inside. “Kicked out? What did he do?”
Gabe started to say, “That’s classified,” out of habit, but caught himself. Considering he’d spent the afternoon inside Audrey, making love to her, she deserved more than the rehearsed response he reserved for SEAL wannabes and frog-hogs. And, technically, Liam’s disgrace was public knowledge—or at least it was in Great Britain. He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into the crook of his arm, savoring the softness of her skin under his hand.
“Liam Miller—which is not his real last name; he went by Collington back then—was one of the British SAS officers helping us to locate a CIA operative who…” He trailed off. Insurgents had held the CIA operative captive in a training camp near the Turkey border. By the time the SEALs located him, he’d been skinned alive. With no way of knowing how many classified secrets he spilled, orders came down from on high to neutralize the camp. Including the women and children.
Um, yeah, Audrey didn’t need to know the nitty-gritty. And he didn’t much care to relive the experience.
Gabe cleared his throat. “That part’s not important. But during the mission, I caught Liam snorting something. Come to find out later, it was coke. That put my team and his in danger, so I reported it to his superiors and they jettisoned his ass so fast he probably still has road rash.”
“Sounds like he deserved it,” Audrey said.
“He did and then some. The drug use wasn’t the whole of it. A couple days after his replacement arrived, we discovered he’d been stealing and selling ordnance to terrorists for years.”
Her eyes widened. “And he was never arrested?”
“He bolted and found himself a comfy position as Mena’s right-hand man. As long as he stays here and Mena stays out of prison, he’s safe.”
Part of the draw of taking down Mena had been the opportunity to get Liam Collington-slash-Miller behind bars as well. It had been Gabe’s pet project right up until the car accident that stole his career. Throughout the many tedious hours he’d spent in the hospital, he often wondered if the accident was more premeditated than accidental. The driver of the pick-up that had caused the crash was never located, and with Gabe out of the teams, the operation came to a dead halt. As far as he knew, nobody had revived it.
He gave Audrey a light squeeze. “Liam’s a dangerous man. He’s extremely well-trained and very unstable. Watch your back around him tonight, okay? He might try to hurt you.”
She flinched. “What? Why? I don’t know him. I had nothing to do with what happened between the two of you. Why would he want to hurt me?”
“Because you’re mine.”
Her eyes lifted to his, filled with a soft something that looked a lot like hope. “Am I?” she whispered. “Yours?”
Jesus Christ, he wanted her to be in the worst possible way. It wasn’t professional, it crossed every line of honor he’d ever drawn for himself, but there it was.
Still. Now was not the time to fight an emotional battle with himself. Now was the time to focus. She couldn’t be his if either of them wound up dead.
“Liam thinks you are, and that’s all that matters.” He knew the instant the words left his tongue that it was the wrong answer. The hope in her eyes faded to disappointment, though she looked away quickly to try and hide the reaction.
“I, um, should shower before dinner.” She pulled out of his embrace and scooted to the edge of the bed, trailing that pale gold sheet behind her to the bathroom.
Gabe let her go. Hurting her feelings hadn’t been his intention, but that’s exactly what he’d done, and he felt powerless to fix it without admitting things he couldn’t afford to admit yet.
He
hated
feeling powerless.
Cursing, he pushed to his feet and strode toward the bathroom door, but paused before barging inside. What if she was using the toilet or something? Muscling his way in when he knew damn good and well she wanted private time would be just plain rude—he could almost hear her scolding for his lack of manners and dropped his hand away from the doorknob, raising it to knock instead.
“Audrey?”
The shower turned on, but she didn’t reply.
Gabe sighed and rapped his forehead lightly on the door, once, twice, which did nothing to help his headache or the blooming ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe.
“You are mine,” he muttered into the wood, although he knew it was a little too little, a little too late.
…
Am I? Yours?
Ugh. Gabe was such a dunce. Audrey might as well have spilled her heart out to him with those three words, and it went completely over his head.
Okay, so that wasn’t entirely fair. He was focused on keeping them safe, getting them free, finding Bryson. He had a lot more on his mind than their budding intimacy. Really, she should, too, but even thoughts of Bryson couldn’t keep her from reliving this afternoon in vivid detail as she soaped herself. She ached in all the most delicious places, her breasts plump and tender from Gabe’s affections, her thighs shaky, her core all but rubbed raw from the friction of his thrusts, and it felt wonderful.
She wanted more. So much more.
She just had to convince Gabe he wanted the same.
Feeling better, Audrey shut off the water, reached for a towel, and noticed the dress she was supposed to wear hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. She’d left it in the other room, so Gabe must have put it there sometime while she was showering. She never heard the door open, but knowing Gabe, she wouldn’t have. For a big man, he moved with eerily light feet.
The silk, plum-colored cocktail dress clung to her in all the right places, with a plunging V neckline that showed a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage. It wasn’t even close to her style, but how disturbing was it that Mena had so accurately guessed her size? She had to fight the urge to rip the awful thing off, shred it into expensive, itty-bitty scraps, and flush it down the toilet.